Early yesterday Israel entered al-Shifa hospital, the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip, with troops, tanks and bulldozers invading the facility where around 7,000 Palestinians are sheltering along with 1,500 patients and medical staff.
The general director of hospitals in Gaza, Munir al-Bursh, reported that people attempting to leave via corridors the Israeli’s declared ‘safe exits’ were fired on by Israeli troops.
He said: ‘Not a single bullet was fired from inside the hospital during the occupation forces storming of the complex’ and that Israeli soldiers entered the surgical and emergency buildings and searched its basement.
Reports also said that Israeli forces were interrogating medical staff and patients including about 30 being taken outside and stripped of their clothes in a courtyard of the hospital, blindfolded and surrounded by three tanks positioned outside the emergency unit, targeting any moving object inside the building.
Gaza’s government media office issued a statement warning of a massacre at al-Shifa hospital saying that Israeli actions were a ‘war crime and a crime against humanity’.
The statement held Israel, the US and the international community ‘fully responsible for the safety of thousands of people inside the faculty.’ In fact the US is directly responsible for the horrific war crime being committed in the hospital.
For the past few days the hospital has been surrounded by Israeli troops and tanks and subjected to constant bombardment and gunfire.
The order to invade the hospital was only given by the Israeli government after getting the green light from US president Joe Biden the day before.
This was given when the White House claimed that US intelligence sources had ‘corroborated’ Israeli claims that Hamas had buried an operation centre under the hospital.
Naturally no evidence was produced by the US government to substantiate this claim, just as the Israelis have never been able to produce any evidence to back up all their lies about hospitals being terrorist centres making them legitimate targets for bombing and killing medics, patients and those desperately seeking shelter from genocidal war.
Hamas nailed the US position in a statement issued on Wednesday which said:‘We hold the occupation and president Biden wholly responsible for the assault on al-Shifa medical complex. The adoption by the White House and the Pentagon of the occupation’s false claim that the resistance is using al-Shifa medical complex for military ends has given the green light to the occupation to commit more massacres against civilians.’
This was the permission the Zionist terror regime were waiting for to launch what it called ‘a precise and targeted operation’ against a non-existent Hamas command centre beneath the hospital.
Despite having a free hand to rampage through the hospital, its grounds and basement, no evidence has been produced to support the lies of the Zionist regime and its US masters used to justify this latest crime against humanity being committed, in an attempt to drive Palestinians from their land and homes through a bloody war of terror.
This constant barrage of propaganda lies to justify the war of extermination being waged by the Zionists has not deceived the tens of millions of workers and young people across the world who have demonstrated their overwhelming support for the Palestinian struggle for independence.
They are seeing in all the atrocities being committed, the guiding hand of the imperialist nations led by the US and fully supported by both the Tories and the Starmer-led Labour Party in the UK.
It is a world imperialist system gripped by a global economic crisis that depends on the constant flow of oil from the Middle East to survive and is prepared to kill hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to shore up Israel as its military base to ensure access to this lifeline for capitalism.
The only force that can put an end to the massacres is the working class of the world rising up in support of the Palestinians in Gaza by taking mass action to bring down the governments of the major imperialist powers.
What is required is the building of sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International worldwide to lead the world socialist revolution to its victory.